Today is all about baptism, beginning with the baptism of Jesus Christ. The gospels all describe John the Baptist with a sense of urgency. What John has to say about repentance and amendment of life is never out of season.

Listen to this warning: “Our Earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common. Children no longer obey their parents. Every man wants to write a book, and the end of the world is evidently approaching.” These words were inscribed on an Assyrian clay tablet dated to 2800 BC.

The people who came to hear John preach listened with eagerness as he called for repentance in some pretty strong terms. Many hoped that John would announce that he was the promised Jewish Messiah. They longed for someone to bring justice, and act righteously on their behalf.

John was not the Messiah. John didn’t name the Messiah specifically, but instead made the coming Messiah sound like the very devil himself with pitchfork in hand, and with unquenchable fire. John shifted the emphasis of the Messiah from a political hero to a godly one.

We don’t know when or exactly where Jesus came to John. And the baptism of Jesus was at first unremarkable. Jesus was cleansed along with others and afterwards he prayed. That’s it.

Suddenly, Luke tells us, something happened.  Heaven opened.  (What does that mean?)  The Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove (meaning that the Spirit looked like a bird? That the Spirit moved like a bird?)  Was Luke making very sure we know this was a real thing?

There was a voice from above (whose voice?) It was speaking words that were used in the ancient rite of anointing for a king. The key parts were, you are my beloved Son, and with you I am well pleased. This is a long way from unquenchable fires and pitchforks.

Disagreement about baptism persists among us to this day. What is it exactly that happens in baptism? At the very least it is about revealing a particular identity. One that goes back a long way in human spiritual memory.

“Finding ourselves” has become a virtue in our culture. But long ago Isaiah 43 said, you are children of God. God created you. God loves you. And God continues to be in relationship with you. God searches for you when you wander off, or when you are driven away.

God promised to be with Israel, to walk with the people through fire and flood. Such cleansing entities harkened back to Israel’s sacred stories of personal and communal deliverance. Noah’s unsinkable ark and Daniel’s dance of indistinguishable life in a blazing fire.

God promised to bring back Israel from dispersion. For ransom and return God would give no less than three great ancient civilizations: Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba. Exchanging life for life. All because, God says, you are mine.

For we who follow Jesus there should be no question that we identify as God’s children. This is true in three ways, as a matter of our human birth through God’s creation activity, through our spiritual inheritance as people grafted onto the rootstock of God’s chosen people Israel, and by our profession of Jesus as our Lord, God present in flesh and time.

In Luke and Acts we see that baptism was practiced variously in the early church. This has led to disputes about baptism. How much water?  At what age? Do we anoint with oil? And what is the form of God’s name that we should be baptized into?

But these were not questions that troubled Luke or other early Christian. Regardless of our differences in practice baptism is a “yes” to God’s claim on us. Baptism commissions us to a life of faith.

Did Jesus initially understand all the implications of his baptism? Certainly his praying afterwards suggests that he took his faith seriously. The activity of God’s Holy Spirit that day signals that the baptism of Jesus was a critical point in his life.

So it was also for the Samaritans who accepted the word of God and began to identify themselves as followers of Jesus. They were cleansed in his name. Then Peter and John prayed for them and they received the Holy Spirit. Acts 8 does not tell us what that looked like, whether it was visible in the moment or later became evident. But they were forever marked by it.

It should be clear to us all that there is one thing baptism isn’t. It isn’t a means to an end. Even if we don’t say it, we often act it out, that once we’re baptized, we’ve finished our spiritual duty.

But if so, then we have missed the whole point made by John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus: baptism is a process, not an event. It is a process that requires the Holy Spirit’s constant presence, a holy wind to separate our chaff out and make us nourishing grain, a roaring fire to melt the ore-rock of our hearts into something more precious than gold that God can use to change the world.

Baptism also has implications, as Jesus learned. If we truly live our baptism of cleansing water and moving Spirit, it will make us stand out just as Jesus did. Not in a fearful ‘The world is ending” kind of way, but in confident acts of grace and thoughtful words revealing our identity as God’s redeemed and beloved children.